Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise concerns about the recommendation by the Commission for Energy Regulation, published last Friday, that in the next accounting period the public service obligation charge on electricity should be increased by 55% from €210 million to €328 million. This would result in a 47% increase in the levy on domestic consumers, a 66% increase for small commercial consumers and an 81% increase for medium and large commercial consumers. At a time when we are trying to increase the productivity of the economy, I find the rationale for these horrendous increases bizarre, to say the least. To quote from the report, one reason is to compensate for lower wholesale prices, so when the price of electricity goes down, the subsidy goes up. It is meant to be good for a country if electricity prices fall.

A second reason is the lower running of a gas station in Tynagh, County Galway. Because its costs are fixed when it is used less, the subsidy has to go up.

The third reason is something that interests our colleagues on the Government benches, namely, a large subsidy for wind generation, which is to increase to €84 million. Government party Senators, particularly those in the Labour Party, have raised the issue of wind power and Senator Byrne has also raised it. Can we please have transparency? Trying to have an argument with a man who has €84 million of public subsidies in his back pocket promoting wind energy as a cheap form of electricity does not really add up.

I hope we can have a discussion on this report. What are these PSO costs for? They seem to be subsidising the high-cost production of electricity and they are levied on consumers. What is the rationale for the payments? The 4 July deadline is one to which Senators may wish to respond. Given the way they have set the price of electricity, I am concerned that the same energy regulator is now in charge of regulating water. Goodness knows what they will do to the price of water if we allow them to get away with what they proposed last Friday.